Wednesday, January 29, 2014

If
you’re snowed in or snow is slowing you down today I have a couple of simple
suggestions.

Don’t
blow the day off. Don’t look at it as a gift vacation day.

And,
if you have kids and they are home today don’t let them overwhelm you and your
time.

Find
one thing to accomplish.

Look
for one thing that, if you accomplish it, today has been a good, productive
day.

So
often, when a situation such as a snow day, sick day, car-breaks-down day or
some other occurrence happens that pulls your attention away you get to the end
of the day and realize that the situation was all you focused on.

The
distraction doesn’t get you closer to success. By virtue of the very fact that
it is a distraction it pulls you away from your
path. But, you must deal with the distraction and that takes time, energy and
focus.

So,
pick one thing, large or small; one thing that, if you complete it, you get one
step closer to your goal, or you were at least somewhat productive today.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Like you, I love music. Yesterday I went to
Radio Shack to get a splitter (a small add-on that lets two wires
come into one input, or vice-versa) and some cable. I’m using them tolink
my computer to my music system.

Iexplained what I wanted to do to
a young salesperson and he helped me find what I thought I needed. It did
concern me a little that I had to keep explaining what a “splitter” is, but I
figured, “Hey, he works here and I’ve always had good luck with Radio Shack so…..”

As
you can guess, when I got home and tried to put the pieces together they didn’t
fit.

So,
bad on me for not looking more closely and bad on them for not doing a better
job of training employees.

I’m
headed back to Radio Shack this morning to trade in the parts that don’t work
and, hopefully, get parts that do.

Whether
you or your folks interact with customers have you thought through what people
need to do their jobs? Sometimes the information is pretty simple; other times
it can be complicated and expensive to effectively train people.

Either
way, you have a better chance of having a successful interaction. This seems common sense, but too often common sense isn't common practice.

Monday, January 27, 2014

There’s
an old joke about the guy whose golfing partner has a heart attack and dies in
the middle of a round. One of his friends asks how he handled the situation he
says, “I did what any good golfer would do; hit the ball, drag Tom, hit the
ball, drag Tom.”

Most
of us consider ourselves to be thinking humans who can analyze our way through
the challenges of life.

But,
when change is coming at us we don’t Analyze-Think-Change.

We
See-Feel-Change.

Emotions--what we are feeling, not logic--are huge factors in how we work our way through change.

There
are a variety of ways we can move our emotions. If we don’t first recognize
their power, though, it’s like we’re moving through life dragging a Tom along
the way.

What’s
a change you’re in the middle of? What emotions are you feeling when you
consider the change? What, or who, are you dragging?

Friday, January 24, 2014

If
you haven’t figured out that it’s cold on the East Coast let me be the one to
break the news to you.

All
my pipes are frozen.

One
of the good things about this sort of cold is that it’s a wonderful focusing
experience.

Try
this: Go outside and simply walk a short distance. What are you totally focused
on? GETTING BACK INSIDE!

Now,
what if you could take that sort of single-minded focus and point it at a goal?
What could you accomplish?

Stay
inside and stay warm.

If
you have to go outside wrap up.

And,
for goodness sakes, don’t be as stupid as the 50 or so scalded folks who have
ended up in emergency rooms because they threw boiling water in the air to see
if it would freeze before it hit the ground.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Until
a few moments ago I didn’t know the winter storm hammering its way up the East
Coast is named Janus.

I
knew we named hurricanes and cyclones, but winter storms? I haven’t heard names
for tornados yet.

Interestingly
though, in Tribes, Seth Godin’s outstanding book
about leadership, he advises naming problems. He uses the term Sheepwalking to describe the actions of folks
who follow along with the crowd.

At
the end of the college football season, on rivalry weekend, I saw a story about
a young boy Ohio State fan and who has cancer. He named the cancer “Michigan” and
talks all the time about beating “Michigan.”

I
like the name-the-problem idea. It’s kind of fun so it lowers the heat level on
the problem by using humor. It also allows you to focus on the issue rather
than getting lost in a lot of the surrounding factors such as loss, pain or
worry.

There’s
a great site, wordoid.com
, that allows you to make up words. Check it out.

I
was trying to come up with a word to describe the feeling caregivers have when
they just don’t want to do it or are afraid of it. Wordoid.com
helped me come up with carefusal and carefear.

Obviously,
you can name your challenge whatever you want but you might want to keep it
clean, at least if you’re going to talk about it in public or around family and
friends.

I
have a number of challenges. I’m going to pick one and name it. Got any
suggestions for the name?

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Sometimes
it takes a lifetime to learn the really important things; the things that make
life worth living.

Last
night one of those moments occurred for me.

I
learned how to make a grilled cheese sandwich that is so good that, after the
first bite, you don’t want to take another one because it means the sandwich
will eventually be gone.

The
secret is to spread a thin layer of squirty margarine on each side of the
sandwich and cook it on medium heat. Each side gets golden brown and a little
crunchy and the cheese melts wonderfully.

If
I could actually create the words that would truthfully explain how good it is
you’d lean forward and lick the screen. Heavenly doesn’t even come close.

I
know it’s a cliché, but the simple things really are the best.

Try
this: Make a list of three simple things you’d love to know how to do well, and
learn how to do them. Your life satisfaction level jumps dramatically and
neuroscience shows that the experience actually makes you healthier.

Friday, January 17, 2014

So, in the interest of
honesty I’m going to make a confession and just put it out there for the world
to see:

I read….Luann

Ok…there…I’ve admitted
it and it’s out in the open.

Luann is a
comic strip in the News and Observer. It follows the trials and tribulations of
a bunch of high school kids and in addition to being mildly entertaining it is
a reminder of all the things we thought were earth-shaking (and some were) when
we were young.

One of the storylines
is about a young couple; he’s dopey, overly-cautious and average-looking while
she’s gorgeous, impulsive and adventurous. (And yes, sometimes life imitates
art)

His natural style is to think through things before he does them and he
finds all kinds of reasons for not stepping out. She’s trying to get him
to—every once in awhile—reach out and grab life.

How often are we that
guy? When an opportunity comes along our first reaction is…No.

If your first reaction
upon reading the sentence above was, “Well Mike, you just can’t take your whole
savings account and go to Tahiti!” Or, “As adults we can't be as impetuous as
kids”…then, you need to keep reading.

What if your first
reaction in life was…Yes?

I spent a lot of
years…even into adulthood…as a Yes person. But, over the last few years I’ve
been saying No more often. In some areas of life it’s become an automatic
reaction and I don’t like that in myself, it’s one of the things I want to work
on this year.

How about you? Are you
a Yes person or a No person?

And I realize that, as
adults, our first reaction is, “You can’t say Yes to everything.”

Gotcha.

However, what’s your
average? More Yes’s or more No’s?

Say Yes this weekend
to something new.

I’m saying Yes to the
Tango tonight.

See you Monday…and say
No to betting a ton of money on the pro football games this weekend.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

On Monday night during the break of a seminar one of
the attendees asked me for help. He had a question about writing a business
plan. I was delighted to offer an answer, but as I was talking with the young,
budding entrepreneur he could not keep from looking at the iPad in front of
him…and it had nothing to do with what we were talking about.

I finally pointed at the tablet and said, “Are you
with me or with that?” The young guy was stunned for a second that I’d asked. I
added, “If you’re with me I’ll be glad to help, but if you’re with that then
I’m interrupting.” He slowly nodded and said, “I’m with you.”

This past weekend a young man was shot and killed in
a theatre in Wesley Chapel, FL because he wouldn’t stop texting during a movie.
The man who shot him is a retired Tampa police officer who has been a member of
the Crime Stoppers group in his community. The older man asked the young guy to
stop texting and even went to the manager to complain, but when he returned to
the theatre the two got into an exchange and now one family has lost a husband
and father and another may lose a husband and grandfather to prison.

In his new book, One-Day Contract, University of
Louisville basketball Coach Rick Pitino writes about “The Trap of Technology”
and how, if he is talking to a recruit who is constantly checking a cell phone,
the coach he doesn’t really want to coach the kid because he knows the player
will always be distracted.

I’m far from being a Luddite, the folks who want us
all to reject technology and go back to a simpler time tilling the soil with a
pointed stick. I love what it can do for us.

But, wasn’t this stuff supposed to make our lives
easier?

I hate to admit it but there are times that I find
technology grabbing me in ways I don’t appreciate. In yesterday’s blog I
decided to give up on one technology and not pursue it.

You’ve had
days like I have on which you’ve almost panicked when you drove away from home
and realized you had forgotten your cell phone. Did you drive back home to get
it? How far did you drive?

I wish I had an easy answer. Technology is so
pervasive now that many of us are tethered to our phones/tablets/laptops/etc.

If you couldn’t read this short blog without
checking on an email or looking at your phone…think about that.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

About a year ago I presented a program for a group
that had some seriously cool technology in their training room. They could see
a computer screen on their big-screen television and make it do all kinds of
things. I asked how they did it and they pointed at an Apple TV unit.

If you’ve never seen one it’s a little gizmo about
the size of a cellphone you attach to your television and it brings in lots of
stuff from your computer/laptop/iPhone/tablet.

Please note the highly technical way I described the
unit; that should give you an indication of how technically adept I am.

So, I went straight to Best Buys and bought one for
$100.

During the last year the unit has been in its box in
my office, living room, stereo area, dining room table, office again, stereo,
coffee table, end table, bedroom, back to the stereo area and now on my desk in
my office. I kept moving it around because I thought that if it was right in
front of me I’d be motivated to connect it to my television so MY television
would do lots of cool stuff.

On Sunday afternoon I thought, “This is ridiculous.
I’ve had this thing a year. I know I want my TV to do really cool things. I’ve
got two degrees and I read a lot and can figure out the Cryptoquote most of the
time so I’ve got to be at least a marginally intelligent person. I actually
teach people to stop procrastinating. So, let’s open this bad boy and get it
hooked up.”

It comes with a little instruction book that, if you
are Stephen Hawking or Chris Cassidy (the only Navy SEAL who is also an astronaut),
is pretty simple to understand.

It only took a couple of minutes for me to make a
decision. I’m giving it away. I’m sending it as far away from me as it can get
and still be in the continental United States and I’m going to let a friend of
mine who, while not Stephen Hawking or an astronaut, thinks these things are
fun.

Good intentions are good…that’s why they are called good intentions…but, sometimes we
have to cut our losses and walk away. If you want to ask yourself a question
that can get kinda uncomfortable, ask this, “What is there in my life that
really doesn’t help me, but I’ve sunk so much time/energy/money/emotion into it
that I keep hanging on?”

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

I know you know
someone like this: No matter what is going on, no matter how good or difficult
a hand life has dealt you or them, no matter what type of How’s it going? question is asked they always jump into the doom
and gloom.

They’re into Doom Porn.

Think about it, the objective
of porn is to get the reader/viewer excited. It’s salacious material (come to
think of it I’ve probably never had the opportunity to use the word salacious, and yes, I know it means lecherous, lustful, obscene, pornographic)
meant to transport the reader/viewer into a heightened
physical/mental/emotional experience.

Have you ever watched
the eyes, expressions and body language of the doom and gloomers? Some of them
will get pretty jacked up telling you how bad the president is, or the credit
card companies, or the people who don’t show up for church, or other drivers,
or Dook Fans (ok, wait…now, those people REALLY are…well, maybe later), or the
(you name it).

A lot of them have the
same reaction as some folks have when they are into porn. The experience
transports them into a negative experience in which they feel a sense of power;
of excitement. For many, a warped sense of comfort.

I have a couple of
friends who are into Doom Porn as I’m
sure you probably do. All you have to do is toss out one of their favorite
topics and you can almost see their eyes starting to fire up. They have no
good, constructive ideas for what might work to change the situation they focus
on, but they can sure tell you all the things they think are bad about it.

Doom Porn
is a waste of everyone’s time and energy. It’s just like the real thing, an
ugly substitute.

Monday, January 6, 2014

The first “real” job I ever had (1974) was working for the North Carolina
Department of Corrections. And yes, some of my friends wondered long and hard
why I as on this side of the fence and not the other.

At the time, the Secretary of Corrections was a successful businessman,
David Jones. David was constantly preaching the late-60, early-70s business
concept of MBO (Management By Objectives) and he made sure all the people who
worked for him bought into it, too.

MBO was all about setting goals and breaking the journey to goal
attainment into small steps. Ever since then I’ve read everything I could find
about setting and achieving goals (check out one of the best goal-setting
teachers, Brian Tracy, at briantracy.com).

Increasingly though, I’m changing my tune about goals and I believe a
blogger, James Clear (jamesclear.com) may have a concept that’s as good if not
better.

Clear talks about systems, not goals. His thesis is that if you create
systems that allow you to complete the consistent, everyday, small steps that
keep getting you closer to a goal you’ll have a better chance of reaching the
outcome you desire.

Clear makes the point that setting a goal and continuing to look at it as
somewhere you aren’t actually impedes your progress in doing the things you
need to do where you are.

Small steps are easier, right in front of you and give you a feeling of
accomplishment that bolsters your confidence.

Friday, January 3, 2014

This time of year, with all the bowl games, always get's me thinking about teams. So, let’s say you’re creating a team.
And the way you’re creating it is by looking at different people and choosing
different points in their lives.

You might choose some folks when
they were children; full of energy, fun, innocent and without guile. Others
would be chosen as young adults; strong and athletic, inquisitive and ambitious.
You could choose some team members as older, richer and more experienced.

I’d quickly choose Richard Branson
because he seems to have all those qualities wrapped up in one!

If you were looking at me,
depending on where in my life you looked, and what your team needed to
accomplish, you might choose me or you might not.

In middle-school years, what those
of us with grey hair used to call junior high school, I’d be the last person
you’d choose for anything athletic.

In college, if your team’s goal was
to have fun, I promise you, you’d absolutely want me to be one of the first
people you’d choose.

As I’ve gotten older folks seem to recognize
that I can hold two very different positions depending on the team’s goal. If
the team’s focus is to start or stop something, to find the way through new
territory, I’m your guy. I have no problem drawing the sword and, for good or
ill, being first one out the castle gate.

However, if it’s managing an effort,
doing what might be thought of as the day-to-day stuff, the consistently steady
efforts that keep it all together…I’m probably on the bench for most of the
game. I am learning though, and some very nice people are teaching me the
power of steadiness.

We all have our teams, the people
around us who influence us. Some members we pick, some are picked for us and
some—family—we have little choice about.

So much of life is determined by
who is around us and who we are around on a regular basis. How we look at life,
how we talk, what we eat, how we approach/repel/treat others, what we focus
our thoughts on, what we believe about spirituality, how we look at work in our
lives…those issues and many more are strongly dependent on our contact with the
people on our team.

Who’s on your team?

One of the most important
resolutions you and I can make for 2014 is to be more choosy about who joins or
gets to stay on our team.

Look around. You’re suiting up for
the game right now. Who’s in the locker room with you?

Contact

Mike Collins is president of The Perfect Workday Company, an information company based in The Research Triangle Region of North Carolina. He presents 100+ programs a year for organizations such as IBM, American Express, Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals and The John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center.